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No it's not a typo, it's the name we've given to our version of the NC500. My friends and I have done the NC500 or our NC250 route every year for the past 8 years and varied the route and stops to suit. Its only just up the road so would be rude not to. This year due to it being midweek it was only the two of us, me and my mate in his MK Indy. Our route on day one took us from home and up a short section of the A9 where we cut off for Crieff and fun began. We then headed up to Dunkeld for a quick pit stop. We were interrogated by some American tourists who were impressed we had Miata and Ford engines. We then headed into the Cairngorms via the A93 through Glenshee to the ski centre. It's a fantastic road and we had a clear run up. We stopped in Braemar for lunch. Not here though, far too expensive, went to the tea room next door. Our route then took us past Balmoral Castle, where we took some single track towards Corgarff Castle and the Lecht ski centre. Again brilliant roads with little traffic to hold us up. Then onto Tomintoul and Grantown on Spey, pretty sure this is always the first road to be closed by snow every year. Then onto our overnight at Inverness via Nairn and a stop at Fort George, but the dolphins weren't out to play. All tucked up. Day 2 promised to be better weather and no hoods. We crossed the Kessock bridge, then the Cromarty bridge heading in land towards Bonar Bridge. viewpoint for the Dornoch Firth and bridge in the distance. Always one of my favourite views of the whole route, never fails to impress. Bonar Bridge in the distance. Thankfully never needed these guys... Our Airbnb in Lairg was a bit too bijou, even if it was on a private island. So we gave it a miss and continued North towards Altnaharra and Tongue. This is where the roads turn to single track, but you often get a good view ahead and can open to car up a bit. This wind farm wasn't there the last time we past here about 3 years ago. Apparently at times we make five time the electricity we use. So why aren't my bills coming down! Stopped at Tongue for lunch and cake. For once it wasn't raining here, we've been soaked often before. After lunch we continued West towards Durness and the Smoo cave. Loch Eribol was picturesque as always. You drive along one side to its end and then 10mins later your driving along the other side you had just been looking at. We topped up our tanks and chocolate supplies at Durness. We also spoke to a couple of bikers from the Netherlands whom we'd past a few times at passing places. Really nice guys who were over on the DFDS ferry for 10 days. Then onto Kylesku for the obligatory pictures. The car park was busy and the cars got lots of attention, one woman even sat in my drivers seat. This year we stayed at the Gairloch Hotel and this was my view, nice eh. Day 3 was forecast to be wet and it didn't disappoint! Although it was raining it didn't damped or spirits as we knew we had some fantastic roads and views ahead. We continued down through Torridon to Shieldaig and the only advantage of the rain was the roads were quiet. Shame Calum the deer is no longer there. This year our route took us on a new road to the base of the Bealach na Ba and not the usual Applecross loop. Again we stopped for the obligatory picture at the Bealach sign and contemplated our next move. The rain was heavy and the mist pretty much covered the mountain, but we had planned to go up and back down the pass, so that's just what we did. The video shows how extreme it was, wind and rain blowing right through the cars! There is a fantastic cafe next to the sign and is highly recommended. After a quick brunch we headed south towards Plockton via Lochcarron. After Plockton we had planned to jump onto Skye and then catch the Glenelg ferry back off and do the Ratagan pass, however the weather was so bad the ferry was off. So a quick picture on Skye and then head for home, via Fort Willam, Glencoe and Callander. Where we hit the motorway. My total mileage for the trip. We usually do this trip in September and maybe it didn't pay off weather wise, but we still enjoyed it. The video should give you an idea just how wet it was. Thanks

bikerpics snapped us see here page 9 of the photo's https://www.bikerpics.co.uk/26082024-a623-peak-forest-alex?page=0%2C%2C8

Local show for me. Weather permitting will be attending for one day in my Westfield.

Is anyone going to the Newark show? We've just booked a Premier Inn for the Saturday and heading to the show on Sunday. Not bringing the cars though, too far.

After my first attempt at sealing my new sump failed, I ordered a new gasket. As I had a few days wait anticipated for the new one, I decided to pull the sump to be ready. Gasket came away in one piece so I thought why not have a go at resealing it. I did this a couple of days ago. 100 odd miles later and no sign of a leak. Rather than try and cancel the new gasket i thought I’d just keep it as a spare..this has arrived just now. Invoice in box says gasket, my eyes tell me otherwise. Anyone know what I’ve received?

Hi @Craigieboy yes there will be Club pitch at the show again this year please see below (and mag) for info 👍 :-

Yeah, that's why I had held off until I had a roof. Should've had the new side screens, but that's another story 🤬, still my lightweight composite honeycomb half doors worked well. 😄 And of course this weekend looks like good weather... Not sure if you've been up before Ian, but the scenery is amazing. Maybe not the drama of the high Alps, but it has more variety than the Alps. Hence all the Dutch, German and Swiss cars we passed.

Great write up, thanks. The wet weather is what puts me off the NC500 in an aero screen car!

See you there

But how is the other guy going to fit his cycle wings with a sump gasket? Maybe a nice big bow... 😄

What does the brown label tied to them say? That might give a clue.

Definitely worth more than a gasket!

They look like front wing brackets. similar to this, https://kitspares.co.uk/collections/all/products/robin-hood-front-wing-bracket-et35-os

Some handle bars for a 19th century bicycle? 😂

New clutch cable: Here's a question: Why do clutch cables have seemingly random bits of blue tube over them? David

Our professional cameraman!!

We were invited on stage! @AndrewBClarke

Brilliant videos @HB46443 You know that it is difficult to ‘unsee’ things. Try this one - Sunday evening, Olly Murs on stage. At the front of the crowd, @Glynn Walters was being very thoughtful by putting the vertically challenged @HB46443on his shoulders, jigging about when @HB46443 produces a large poster with ‘Olly will you marry me?’ I can’t get that vision out of my head. 🤪 Good time thou.

Can highly recommend David at @Tillett Car Seats - fantastic to deal with. Bought a pair of Tillett's from him for my old car (10+ yrs ago) and recently chatted to him again about seats for a potential new car (as it happens bought one with Caterham seats already fitted) I`d recommend a call to David even just to find out the options for new ones - he will give you a lot of useful info. Mat

A big thank you to @Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative from me and Kate too, for organising a great run out and meeting everyone who attended! We really enjoyed it and will try and get to more of these in future. Steve

The car museum was super busy, it was a 'meet' plus they were celebrating the Mini being 65 years old today and I think a 'good weather Bank Holiday day might have helped too. Ollie on the gate looked after us and directed us to a natty little parking spot, out of the way but still on show, I like it and we will park there again. here we are. After a bit of tyre kicking we mgrated to the cafe for a quick brew before our run out. Just as we were about to leave @ben1975 and @Exige man Ben and Allan arrived, they had come to the museum event and were not coming on the run, so we swapped parking places. Our run out avoided Matlock Bath and Bakewell, it was busy out there and there was even traffic on our usually empty little lanes. I did my first emergency stop for a while, I knew that ruddy woman was going to pull out on me, I knew it. I was glad Big Andy is a good driver and also managed to stop, thank you buddy. We managed to make good time and landed at Wormhill for cake, 'What before lunch?' I hear you ask. Yes it was how the route planned out and you wouldn't want to miss this would you? Just in case you missed the actual size of this home baked lovliness from the local village ladies, have a closer look. Real stuff, that's where it was stuck to the tin, that flaky bit. With a distinct lack of Andy's @AndrewBClarke @aeg @Andy Westwood, who usually get the largest slices of cake, we bought our own Andy, @Big Andy who obliged. Next was a pop over the hill for those far reaching views, a tickle through Litton, up the twisties and we arrived at The Cow Shed for lunch, we were hungry after eating all that cake. Cow Pie Chris had one of those Bagpuss style number plates James MX5 supercharged engined Westfield which I really enjoyed travelling behind me That's All Folks, I think James and Jake carried on up to Ladybower but the rest of us scooted off home to beat the traffic before it all decided to leave the Peak District in one go at tea time. We had a good run back with Big Andy and a ruddy good day out, thanks for coming everyone, especially to Terence and his wife who promised at Malvern to pay us a visit.

Good day at the Festival yesterday, but hopefully next time more sun and less wind! Much gratitude to @Marcus Barlow - Show and Events Co-ordinator for coordinating and for my free tickets. Great to meet up with some old and new faces. Here's a few photos from the day: T This one was parked elsewhere and looks like it took part in one of the Festival's runs, anyone on here? On the Westfield stand I can't help but be intrigued by the Tipo 184: Sitting astride the gearbox with a remote stick on the RHS might take some getting used to, but the main thing I see is that, as present, the front of this particular car would never make it through IVA without work on the edges. I'd love to have a go at one of these but £27.5K + VAT for what you get sounds steep. For something which uses so much donor componentry I'd be looking for a lower price point. Here's a few more things that took my fancy or fall into the oddball category, in no particular order:

Last pictures from me.

Seen some great racing at the festival today, I'm loving the sound in particular

A few more pics fr the international pits 😎

A couple of Senna cars about to go out on the tribute demonstration laps 😎

This is just a dump of various images I took on Sunday. Please feel free to add any you took if you were there too. They are just a tiny sample of the hundreds of beautiful cars on show. Favourites for me were the £30 million 250 GTO owned by Nick Mason, the F40LM, the beautiful McLaren F1 and MP-4/5B F1 car. I also loved the Lanzante McLarens, colour scheme is spectacular! Surprisingly, I was also quite impressed by the McMurtry Spéirling. It just seemed to be very well thought out and engineered, nice and small and achieved alot more with 1000bhp than other ICE and Electric cars achieved with 1500 or 2000bhp. I confess I wasn’t taken by the Red Bull RB17 Hypercar. Whilst no doubt amazingly engineered and unbelievably fast, it just looks huge and quite fussy. Compared to the stunning McLaren F1…. Well to me there is no comparison. The last two shots are quite special to me. The first one was, I think, in 2007 when my son was five, and then this year. He wanted to make sure his car was in shot to show he was now driving himself to Goodwood 😊 Finally, a couple of vids from the day (or should I say firstly as they appeared before the images 🤪)

Gutted to have missed it this year, been looking forward to it for ages. Sadly, ill health last week meant I didn’t even manage to leave the house till Sunday.